The Maze Runner: The New World

Chapter 1:

5 years later:

"Thomas! Quickly!" Minho shouted, shaking Thomas' sleeping body into reality.

"Huh? What's going on?" Thomas yawned, squinting at the light flooding his pupils, partially blocked by Minho's toned body towering over him.

"It's ended," Minho announced.

Thomas didn't know what to say. Every emotion poured into him. "Oh.." Was all that he could find to portray his feelings. Minho understood and nodded at Thomas. No one needed to say anything - the boys knew every inch of each other. A river of questions rushed through Thomas' head all at once. A million questions, no answers. Only time would give them answers.

"I wonder what it's like on Earth now," Minho muttered, slicing through the heavy silence.

"Yeah," Thomas replied, swinging out of bed.

Minho and Thomas wandered out of the ramshackle wooden hut and down the winding cliff path to the beach. It stretched for miles and miles, the pale beige sand seemingly never running out, the clear salty ocean lapping the edge of the sand. "This is it." Thomas said quietly, "The humans here are the ones that make up the entire human race."

"Four-hundred and thirty seven. That makes us endangered, right? Aren't endangered species meant to be protected?" Minho replied.

"That's not what any animals here seem to think," Thomas chuckled.

"We don't even know where abouts in the universe we are."

"And nor do we want to know. If one thing's for certain here, it's that scientists aren't welcome. Look what happened to Earth."

"Good that."

The boys sat there for who knows how long, contemplating what had just happened. They were alone on a planet they knew next to nothing about with only about 400 other humans. The survival of the entire human race rested on their shoulders. No one was going to help them. No one was going to send them a free dinner when supplies got low and no one was going to send in a few more immunes when they were discovered. What they had right there in their community was all they were going to get, unless they worked to get it themselves. "How did you find out?" Thomas finally questioned.

"Flat trans," Minho produced a note from his pocket and handed it to Thomas. 'We are the last ones. This is your last ever package. By the time you get this, we are gone. No human exists on earth. Good luck for the future and do the Human Race proud.' Thomas had no idea what to say. He knew the situation yet for some reason actually seeing the note made everything real. This was it.

"Come on, shank. We've got work to do ~ Especially now were alone," Minho finally said, breaking the silence.

"I know," Thomas groaned as he pushed himself up onto his feet.

They walked in silence back up the path, keeping a steady rhythm of crunching stones and grunting breaths. They knew each other so well now it was almost like they could communicate in their heads like he, Teresa and Aris had done. A deep pain inside Thomas pulled at his heart as he remembered Teresa. They'd gone through so much together, and WICKED had taken it all away. He had hated her with a passion. Hate that he felt right to the core. He had never felt so strongly about something in his entire life ~ even without his full memory he was sure of that. Yet even after the hostility he had shown her, Teresa gave up her life to save Thomas. He never said goodbye to her. He had no idea what to think of her, but he had an awful hunch that he had been wrong to show such contempt towards her.

After about ten minutes, the two reached the clearing at the top of the cliff, still in silence and deep thought. A few people were milling around, mostly mothers and young children ~ everyone else was either doing their daily jobs or in their huts. Thomas spotted Brenda, who was running towards them. "Hey you pair of lazies!" She shouted across the clearing, "Have you heard yet, Thomas?"

"No. I've been living on another planet for a few hours and I've just magically appeared back next to Minho, who is making no attempt to tell me anything," Thomas replied sarcastically.

"Cut the sarcasm. In case you hadn't noticed, this is quite a serious situation," Brenda said, reaching the boys and breathing heavily like an over-heated dog.

"Well then maybe we should call a gathering and sort things out, instead of running around and talking gossip in small clans," Minho butted in.

Brenda and Thomas nodded in agreement, Thomas wrapping an arm around Brenda and kissing her on the cheek.

Minho jogged off to the speaker to announce the gathering. "Would all Keepers attend the main room in half an hour."

Almost immediately, the clearing was empty of people, who had gone off to meet with their group. Brenda and Thomas ambled off, arms wrapped round each other, to the main room to meet with the rest of their group before the meeting. Brenda was the keeper of her group, Minho was the head-keeper of the whole place and Thomas was deputy head.

They entered through the doorway, simply made of branches. It reminded Thomas of the homestead back in the maze. There were branch chairs positioned in a circle around the edge of the room. Only a small table with one leg shorter than all the rest, perched in the middle of the circle. Most of the adults in the Cranes group was gathered inside. Minho stood in front of his chair, preparing his speech. He cleared his throat and the room went silent. In the settlement, the gladers, group Bs, Brenda and Jorge were seen as figures of authority. They had led the first immunues to the flat trans. "So," Minho began, "As I am sure you are all aware, this group of humans are the only ones left. The entire race rests upon our shoulders. We have to come up with an effective plan to be able to function well without aid from other sources. There will be no more boxes with materials to make things, no more parcels of food when we can't find any. Now, does anyone have any suggestions which we can put forward to the main meeting?"

A girl about who looked about twenty put her hand up. "We have the basis for a good living ~ we have shelter, food and water, but we need to utilise the potential of this place, and everyone in it. I personally think that all we can do is just work our butts off and make this place as easy to live in as possible. After all, we are very lucky to live here ~ we're free and there are no cranks trying to eat our eyeballs for breakfast."

"Thank you Geena," Minho said, scribbling it all down in his notepad.

A middle aged man who Thomas knew as called Mitchell began to speak in a deep, weathered voice, "We all realise that this situation isn't a joke and we all know that what Geena said was correct, can we please just leave?"

Minho spoke up after finishing writing his notes, "Thank you Mitch, but please bear with me ~ there is something very important that only the keepers know about, something very important which could affect our whole civilisation that I am yet to tell everyone."